Tuesday, January 19, 2010
NO LONGER FOR HIRE: You wouldn't list Robert B. Parker as among the greatest of American writers, but he kept up a unique niche with his 38 Spenser novels. Every novel was tense, sparse, and gritty in the tradition of old-school private eye novelists like Raymond Chandler (whose last, unfinished, Marlowe novel was finished by Parker). However, despite the old-school nature of his writing, Parker's novels were always contemporary--basketball gambling, drug trafficking, and a diverse supporting cast. Add to that 9 novels involving small town police chief Jesse Stone, 6 involving Sunny Randall, a female Spenser figure, and a well-reviewed series of Westerns, and that's quite a body of work. Even now, in his late 70s, Parker regularly turned around 2-3 books a year. Not all of them were of the best quality, but he was writing, which he clearly loved--and there's something fitting that he apparently died at his desk today. (Also dead today--folk singer and mother of Rufus Wainwright Kate McGarrigle.)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Love means never having to say that Erich Segal just passed away as well.
ReplyDeleteParker's Speser series were the first "grown-up" mystery series I read, and I credit them for my love of crime fiction. I would say a good 70% of the books I read in my 20's was in that genre, and even though I've branched out significantly, I always had room for more Spenser. This news makes me so sad -- my whole family loved those books. And whenever I see a giant mansion that someone has given a name to, I am reminded of the hilarious conversation between Spenser and Hawk in A CATSKILL EAGLE where Hawk says that one day he's going to buy a mansion in Beverly Hills and name it "The Ghetto." R.I.P. Mr. Parker.
ReplyDeleteThat's probably why he didn't say it.
ReplyDeleteWhat can you say about a seventy-two-year-old man who died? That he based Oliver on Al Gore and Tommy Lee Jones? That he wrote about Plautus and did the screen play for Yellow Submarine?
ReplyDeleteMaret- Spenser was one of the first books that my dad and I read at the same time. I will always have a soft spot for Parker's writing. RIP indeed.
ReplyDeletefolk singer and mother of Rufus Wainwright...
ReplyDeletealso mother to Martha Wainwright, maybe my favorite of the Wainwrights. I'm not very familiar with the McGarrigles themselves, but The McGarrigle Christmas Hour is a wonderful Christmas CD.
When did she have time to run Hogwarts?
ReplyDeleteRBP will be missed greatly. Loved his writing. I first became aware of the Spenser books in Ellen Emerson White's teen fiction series about the daughter of the first woman president. She was a fan of the books. *sigh*
ReplyDelete